ENIAC

The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer

The true father of the modern computer was not John von Neumann, as he is generally credited. That honor belongs to the two men, John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, who built the world's first programmable computer: the legendary ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). Mauchly and Eckert developed a revolutionary vision: to make electricity "think." Funded by the U.S. Army, the team they led constructed a behemoth weighing thirty tons with eighteen thousand vacuum tubes and miles of wiring that blazed a trail to the next generation of computers that quickly followed. Based on original interviews with surviving participants and the first study of Mauchly and Eckert's personal papers, ENIAC is a dramatic human story and a vital contribution to the history of technology that restores to the two inventors the legacy they deserve.